Mid-season challenge hits home for Maple Leafs

East-leading Lightning await Leafs after wrapping up tough road stretch, and 2017, in Vegas. With or without Nazem Kadri to lend a hand, there’s no question it’s crunch time, Rosie DiManno writes.

Zach Hyman and the Leafs need a few bounces to go their way against the best in the East on Tuesday night, after failing to launch against Malcolm Subban and the West-leading Golden Knights on Sunday. (John Locher / AP)

Having scuttled out of Sin City — which happens to be in a cannabis licit state, just sayin’ — the Maple Leafs, after absorbing a 6-3 New Year’s Eve butt-kicking by the formidable Golden Knights, now get to wrangle with the league-leading Lightning at home.

“As good as this team is,” said coach Mike Babcock of the astonishing expansionist Knights, “I think Tampa is probably a touch above, so we’re going to have to be ready to go.”

At precisely the midpoint of the season, Tuesday evening at the Air Canada Centre will be both homecoming and an opportunity for Toronto to take its measure against the best the NHL has to offer, in the wake of the second-best the NHL has to offer.

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The Bolts have a five-game win streak going and went 11-2-0 in December, one of those losses courtesy of the aforementioned Knights. The Leafs were 6-6-1 seeing off 2017.

A resolution Toronto should consider for 2018: Show up on time.

Three in the hole before the Leafs woke up for Sunday’s matinee at T-Mobile Arena, a first-period laggardness that was a recurring theme in December, despite racking up 47 goals in the opening frame on the season — and a 13-3-0 record when leading after the first.

Admittedly, the schedule was unkind to Toronto — on the road for 10 games in December, 14 of their last 18 away from the ACC. “We just went through a tough stretch as you all know,” Babcock reminded the travelling press after Sunday’s loss, fourth time this campaign Toronto has surrendered half a dozen goals. “Came through that pretty good, actually. We’ve just got to get regrouped and get playing.”

The Leafs catch a scheduling breather now, with their next six at home. Out of 41 games remaining, 25 will be in the friendly confines of the ACC where they sport an 11-5-0 record.

“Definitely looking ahead,” said Auston Matthews, who registered his 99th and 100th career points in the loss to Vegas, with a pair of goals which were scored 77 seconds — and one intermission — apart. “The best team in the league. They’ve got a lot of firepower, they’ve been hot all season. So it’s going to be a good test.

This six-pack at home will be crucial as the Leafs seek to consolidate a hold on second place in the Atlantic Division behind Tampa, currently tied at 48 points with Boston, albeit the Bruins have three games in hand. “That’s going to be big for us,” assessed Matthews. “We want to take advantage of that because obviously this month (December) we’ve been on the road for the most part. When you go home and you’re playing some really good teams that are coming into our house, we’ve got to make sure we get those points.”

It’s unclear whether Nazem Kadri will be restored to the lineup for the Lightning engagement. He took an elbow to the ear early in the game against Arizona last Thursday and hasn’t been seen on the ice since. Babcock kept up a reassuring patter about the centre’s imminent return, but the bench boss has been guilty of disseminating disinformation before (see Matthews, concussion). Given such mendacity around the club, it’s entirely possible Kadri has had his brainpan rattled as well.

Nothing imminent about the reappearance of Nikita Zaitsev, however. The yeoman D-man is believed to have suffered a broken foot in the Dec. 15 game in Detroit, with Jan. 16 — after five days off for the team — now projected as a return date.

The Leafs have scrambled on the back end in Zaitsev’s absence, with Connor Carrick and call-up Martin Marincin dividing the extra load, as Babcock chooses to dress them. But the blue-line vulnerability has been there since day one of 2017-18 and everybody’s wondering if GM Lou Lamiorello will address this issue before the trade deadline — if, in fact, the Leafs are serious about making a serious playoff run in the spring.

“I’m not worried about that right now,” claimed Babcock of the Zaitsev quotient lacking, though he was still narrowly discussing Toronto’s defensive inadequacies in the Vegas defeat. “Zaits isn’t back for a while. When he gets back . . . he’s a good player. The reality is, whoever you play on a nightly basis has to be able to play. Sometimes when you play quick teams like (the Knights), some guys get exposed and that was evident.”

But Marincin paired with Jake Gardiner was a disaster on Sunday and the domino effect has been apparent on the Andreas Borgman-Roman Polak combo.

“He’s a big part of this team, a big part of the back end, and he’s very valuable to us,” noted Morgan Rielly. “When he’s not in the lineup, it shows. But I think the guys who have come into the lineup have done a great job. I mean, there’s teams that miss guys all the time. We’re missing Nazzi too. The guys that have taken their place have done an outstanding job.”

Which is what one would expect to hear from Rielly, who embodies the team doggedness fibre. A team which, it should be remembered, survived 10 Auston-less games, six of them just before the Christmas break.

The start of a new year is a natural juncture for summing-up, looking back and looking ahead. Toronto is so far ahead of where the club was at this point 12 months ago and nobody is anxiously fearful of a Leaf cave-in through the second half.

“I think we’ve grown a lot,” observed Rielly, weighing the team’s accomplishments, and he’s been here through the worst of days.

“Last training camp we came in and didn’t really know what to expect.” He’s talking about 2016. “We had a lot of new faces, a lot of young guys. You grow together, you get to know one another, you gel as a team. The experiences we had last year were very important to us — making the playoffs, playing well in the playoffs was important as well.

“It was a whole different feeling at training camp this year. We want to carry over year after year, trying to get better and better. It’s important we keep doing that.”

Expectations? Hell, bring ’em on.

“Absolutely. I think that the expectations of the fans have changed and the expectations from the people in this room have changed.”